Going to a wedding alone is not a consolation prize

The invitation arrives with one name on it. Or it arrives with two, and the second is a courtesy: “and guest”, a blank where a person is meant to go. For a lot of people that blank becomes the first problem of the wedding. Who could be brought, what it says if nobody is, and whether it would be easier to send a present and stay at home.

I think going to a wedding alone is badly underrated, and that most of the dread around it comes from an idea of weddings that is already out of date.

The seating plan is not a verdict

Weddings are built around couples in a way few other occasions are. The day celebrates one pair and then, very often, arranges everybody else into pairs as well: two by two at the tables, on the dance floor, in the photographs. A guest without a partner can start to feel like the odd number in a sum that was meant to come out even.

But the sum belongs to the couple getting married, not to you. A wedding with single guests, widowed guests, divorced guests, and guests whose partners stayed at home with a baby or a night shift is simply a wedding with people at it. Almost nobody at the table is keeping count of who came with whom, and the few who are rarely make the best company anyway.

Why alone can be better

Arriving on your own changes the day, and not always for the worse. A couple at a wedding spends a surprising amount of it looking after each other: checking the other one is all right, knows someone, isn’t bored, has a drink, wants to leave. On your own, you owe that to nobody. You can talk to whoever interests you, stay at the bar for as long as the conversation is good, sit down when your feet say so and go home when you have had enough.

You are also more approachable. A pair talks to each other; a person on their own gets talked to. Weddings throw together people from different parts of one life who may never be in a room together again, and the guest without a companion is often the one who ends the night having met the most of them. New friendships start in rooms like that more often than we admit.

And there is something quietly dignified about turning up for someone on your own, simply because you love them and wanted to see them married. It is the same thing eating alone in a restaurant teaches you: being on your own in company is not the same as being lonely, and the room is far less interested in you than you fear.

The awkward parts, handled

None of this makes the difficult moments vanish, so it is worth thinking about them in advance.

The arrival is usually the hardest ten minutes. Get there on time rather than early, find the one person you know or a member of the family, and give yourself a small job: a card to hand over, a present to put somewhere, a drink to fetch. People standing still look lost; people doing something look busy.

The meal is easier than it looks. Couples who plan their seating well put single guests next to people they will get on with, and even when they haven’t, the table will talk. Ask the person beside you how they know the couple. At a wedding it is the one question that always has an interesting answer.

Then comes the question. Someone, usually an older relative with the best of intentions, will ask when it will be your turn, or where your other half is. You do not owe an explanation. “Just me today, and having a lovely time,” said with a smile, closes it. If you are single and happy, you can say so. If you are single and sad about it, you are allowed not to discuss it over dessert.

The first dance and the slow songs are the part many people dread most. Nobody minds if you sit them out, step outside for some air, or take the chance to talk to a grandparent of the couple, who has also been sitting down all evening and will have better stories than anyone on the dance floor.

If you can bring someone

Sometimes the invitation does include a guest, and it is tempting to fill the space with anyone, a friend who has never met the couple or a date who will need looking after, just so you don’t walk in alone. It is worth asking whether that person will make the day better, or only make the entrance easier. A plus-one who is bored by nine o’clock is heavier company than nobody at all.

The couple, meanwhile, will not mind in the slightest. Most people planning a wedding are grateful for a guest who says yes, turns up, is kind to everyone and dances when the music is good. That is the whole job.

Go

A wedding is one of the few days left when everyone who loves the same two people gathers in one room. You were invited because you are one of them. Love should not require you to become smaller, and neither should a seating plan. Wear something you feel good in, charge your phone, keep the fare home in your pocket, and go to the wedding.